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Phoenix (constellation)
Phoenix is a minor constellation in the southern sky. Named after the mythical Phoenix (mythology), phoenix, it was first depicted on a celestial atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 ''Uranometria''. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. The constellation stretches from roughly −39° to −57° declination, and from 23.5h to 2.5h of right ascension. The constellations Phoenix, Grus (constellation), Grus, Pavo (constellation), Pavo and Tucana, are known as the Southern Birds. The brightest star, Alpha Phoenicis, is named Ankaa, an Arabic word meaning 'the Phoenix'. It is an orange giant of apparent magnitude 2.4. Next is Beta Phoenicis, actually a Binary star, binary system composed of two yellow giants with a combined apparent magnitude of 3.3. Nu Phoenicis has a dust disk, while the constellation has ten star systems with known planets and the recently discovered galaxy clusters El Gord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix is a Legendary creature, legendary immortal bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Originating in Greek mythology, it has analogs in many cultures, such as Egyptian mythology, Egyptian and Persian mythology. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, while others say that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. In the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'', a tool used by folklore studies, folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32.Thompson. (2001: 581). The origin of the phoenix has been attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus and later 19th-century scholars, but other scholars think the Egyptian texts may have been influenced by classical folklore. Over time, the phoenix motif spread and gained a variety of new associations; Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Louis De Lacaille
Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the 88 constellations. From 1750 to 1754, he studied the sky at the Cape of Good Hope in present-day South Africa. Lacaille observed over 10,000 stars using a refracting telescope. Biography Born at Rumigny in the Ardennes in eastern France, he attended school in Mantes-sur-Seine (now Mantes-la-Jolie). Afterwards, he studied rhetoric and philosophy at the Collège de Lisieux and then theology at the Collège de Navarre. He was left destitute in 1731 by the death of his father, who had held a post in the household of the duchess of Vendôme. However, he was supported in his studies by the Duc de Bourbon, his father's former patron. After he graduated, he did not accept ordination as a priest but took deacon's orders, becoming an Abbé. He concentrated thereafter on science, and, through the patronage of Jacques ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiant (meteor Shower)
The radiant or apparent radiant of a meteor shower is the celestial point in the sky from which (from the point of view of a terrestrial observer) the paths of meteors appear to originate. The Perseids, for example, are meteors which appear to come from a point within the constellation of Perseus. Meteor paths appear at random locations in the sky, but the apparent paths of two or more meteors from the same shower will diverge from the radiant. The radiant is the vanishing point of the meteor paths, which are parallel lines in three-dimensional space, as seen from the perspective of the observer, who views a two-dimensional projection against the sky. The geometric effect is identical to crepuscular rays, where parallel sunbeams appear to diverge. A meteor that does not point back to the known radiant for a given shower is known as a ''sporadic'' and is not considered part of that shower. Shower meteors may appear a short time before the radiant has risen in the observer's ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visible Universe
The observable universe is a spherical region of the universe consisting of all matter that can be observed from Earth; the electromagnetic radiation from these objects has had time to reach the Solar System and Earth since the beginning of the cosmological expansion. Assuming the universe is isotropic, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is the same in every direction. That is, the observable universe is a spherical region centered on the observer. Every location in the universe has its own observable universe, which may or may not overlap with the one centered on Earth. The word ''observable'' in this sense does not refer to the capability of modern technology to detect light or other information from an object, or whether there is anything to be detected. It refers to the physical limit created by the speed of light itself. No signal can travel faster than light, hence there is a maximum distance, called the particle horizon, beyond which nothing can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Cluster
The Phoenix Cluster (SPT-CL J2344-4243) is a massive, Abell class type I galaxy cluster located at its namesake, southern constellation of Phoenix (constellation), Phoenix. It was initially detected in 2010 during a 2,500 square degree survey of the southern sky using the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect by the South Pole Telescope collaboration. It is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, with the mass on the order of 2 solar mass, , and is the most luminous X-ray cluster discovered, producing more X-rays than any other known massive cluster. It is located at a comoving distance of from Earth. About 42 member galaxies were identified and currently listed in the SIMBAD Astronomical Database, though the real number may be as high as 1,000 galaxies. Discovery The Phoenix Cluster was first reported in a paper by R. Williamson and colleagues during a survey by the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica, being one of the 26 galaxy clusters identified by the survey. The detection has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
